Spending on White House dinners soars under Obama

Slideshow of photos from the Mexico and India state dinners, which together cost nearly $1.5 million, including costs for massive tents and trolleys to ferry guests. Click the text blurb icon in the lower-left corner of the photos to see full captions. All photos by Pete Souza and Lawrence Jackson/The White House.

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President Obama has spent far more lavishly on White House state dinners than previous chief executives, including nearly $1 million on a 2010 dinner for Mexico's president, according to documents obtained byThe Washington Examiner.

Presidents have long used formal dinners to court foreign heads of state and to dish out fine food and wine to reward political, financial and show business celebrities and supporters.

But current and former government officials said the documents obtained by TheExaminerpoint to an unprecedented upsurge in White House spending on such events.

A knowledgeable government official who made the documents available to TheExaminersaid the extravagant spending seemed unfair with so many Americans out of work.

"It just kind of takes your breath away to see the expenditure of money that has occurred since 2009," the official said.

WALTERS

Gary Walters, who ran presidential household operations for 21 years during Democratic and Republican administrations, before retiring in 2007, told The Examiner the costs reflected in the documents were "excessive. They are high."

The chief usher of the White House from the Reagan to George W. Bush presidencies, Walters consulted a former White House colleague and said neither of them could recall entertainment costs anywhere near those revealed in the documents provided to The Examiner.

"The highest [cost] event we could remember was $190,000 to $200,000 range, and that was for a very large dinner outside that was probably somewhere in the vicinity of 500 people with two different tents," Walters said, noting that the event was held under President Clinton.

Data for state dinner costs under Bush were unavailable because he signed an executive order in 2001 that put all presidential documents under seal for five years after a chief executive leaves office.

Spokesmen for the presidential libraries of Clinton and President George H.W. Bush were unable to locate data for dinners held in those years.

State dinner costs are a closely guarded secret, the officials said, because of concern about offending governments whose dignitaries receive less opulent bashes than others.

An attorney, Walsh worked on the 2008 presidential campaigns of both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to his official online biography.

Under a long-standing agreement, state dinner expenses are sent by the White House to Walsh's office for processing. His name does not appear in any of the documents obtained by the newspaper.

Asked about the propriety of a White House contractor having a business relationship with a federal official in a position such as Walsh, Walters said, "I don't think it looks very good. Does it smell right? No."

Walters said he never used outside event planners because "I believed the White House residence staff could do the job."